Read through the forum looking for answers to the "slow lookup" question, and tried the HotFix4 option mentioned about 5-6 months ago. HotFix 4 wouldn't run because it said "not necessary for this version." Is HotFix already incorporated in the latest update? Or is it just available for Premium?

Regardless, my version, freshly purchased and updated, takes several MINUTES to update a contact record and move to the next one. As others have noted in the aforementioned thread of 6 months ago, it is ridiculous to have to resort to paper notes during a call, then agonizingly update the records after the call. I don't have time for that.

I have about 12 days left before I take it back to OfficeDepot to exchange it for anything else besides Act!.

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

Since you have just installed it, I would contact Sage tech support. I'm sure there are a lot of questions to answer to help them find the problem. I am not a technician, but the slowness was a great problem until it was fixed with Version 2010. It now looks up as it should.

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

Tried to call tech support, but automated system wouldn't let me in without a customer number. My registration failed to yeild a customer number, so I had to make a separate call to customer service to get it.

Called tech support and was escalated quickly to Ravi. I gave him remote access to fiddle with various Act! and Windows settings. He was thorough, fast, and seemed to know just where to go. As he made adjustments to my system, he explained what he was doing in layman's terms (I'm a little more advanced than that, but was glad that he took the time to explain).

He made about 8-10 adjustments to Act!'s set-up files, stuff that was buried deep within obscure configuration files. He made a couple of adjustments to Windows settings, checked my RAM, swap file, and other stuff to make sure it was all good. The only system recommendation he gave me was to upgrade to Windows SP3 (I'm only on SP2).

Overall, the system is running better and there's NO WAY I could have tweaked like he did remotely. It begs the question - why not provide a patch to make these adjustments and post for downloading? Or, better yet, permanently fix the program!

I was very happy with the tech support, but the jury is still out on whether Act! 2010 is going to work for me.

Just before I wrote this update, I tried to send an email with the built-in email client and it crashed. Oh well, back to cut-and-paste.....

Example 1: Switching from list view to detail view = 90 seconds or more. Switching from Contact to Company view is even worse. If I run some memorized key strokes to ignore the display and continue working, I get about a dozen or so strokes in before I get nervous and stop. Have waited as much as 5 minutes for the screen to catch-up.

Example 2: Today, I ran a filter to display Companies with Any State Field = "WY", then went to delete them one-by-one (another major gripe - why isn't there a batch delete?). Every delete took several painfully slow seconds to register and free the screen back up to see the list (list view). Try counting to 90 or 120 while you sit and watch the cursor!

I checked several other posts, mulitple online comments, etc., and the only thing I can figure is that Sage blames the 5400 RPM hard drive. The system requirements on http://www.sage.com/systreq don't mention anything about hard drive revolutions. A new laptop with 7200 RPM drive is over $1000.

Can't take ACT! back to Office Depot as their softward policy states that they will just replace it with the same software. $199 down the drain, not to mention the two weeks dead time either waiting for ACT! or researching fixes.

By the way, I tried to install Hotfix 4, which I also read about online as a possible fix, but it won't load. It reports that it isn't the right version software for that fix even though the hotfix download page states that it applies to ACT! 2010, not just Premium.

I can't adequately articulate the sense of betrayal, frustration, and hopeless I feel right now. Before ACT!, I used a proprietary FilePro database developed by my company that ran on a remote server 1200 miles away with just under 30 users. It, too had responsiveness issues, but was WAY better than what I'm dealing with now as a single user running with the database locally placed on my own hard drive.

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

Have you tried this in the demo database? Do you get the same issues with slowness? ACT! Does rely heavily on hard drive speed, the faster it can get to the iformation the faster it can display it to you.

Try opening up the ACT! 2010 demo database and perform the same tasks, let me know what you find.

Also on a side note you don't need to replace the whole laptop, if yours will accept a 7200 RPM HD, I would check with your manufacture and see if your laptop will support it, then if you want you can replace it.

Also I am pretty sure you should be able to return your software, it is a 30 day money back guarantee, I would talk to the customer support in the US and ask them what you need to do if you want to return your software to office works

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

Thank you for your reply. I haven't totally given up yet, but this is getting ridiculous.

I just discovered the download section of the support site. Two upgrades were available, but the upgrade menu selection directly from ACT! said everything was up-to-date (showed Hotfix 1 as the current version).

I d/l'd service pack 1 hotfix 1, which loaded fine. I then loaded another hotfix (not 4, but I forget which one). It was a small one and it loaded fine. Hot fix 4 wouldn't load in any case despite multiple tries. Couldn't find hotfix 2 or 3, both of which were supposed to deal with performance issues and locked-ups.

Once I installed these hotfixes and service pack one, I rebooted and went back to work. MUCH better. After about 2 hours, I noticed a degradation again, but I also knew that Outlook had recently accessed the database to log a couple of new emails into a contact history. Once the hard drive stopped spinning from that task, things went back to normal.

I checked on the swap-out for a new drive. My laptop will handle it (for another $200 and extensive time to back-up and transfer data), but for one problem: The HP nc6400 has had overheating issues in the past and the 7200 hard drive tends to run hotter. Don't need that! Also, the SATA drive requires new drivers before it will work properly.

Sure, I could do all that, but what a tremendous hassle! Why doesn't this just WORK? If there bugs, why don't they provide a seamless patch system to provide fixes for us? I've been digging for over a week to find all this stuff and it shouldn't be this difficult. Even a call to tech support didn't reveal the need for the hotfixes, and that was even after the techie took control and started tweaking .ini files and such.

We'll see how well this adjustment works over the next couple of days. I welcome any other insights that others can bring to keep me from heaving this out the nearest window.

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

You don't need to install those other hot fixes, they were released before 12.1 was released, and were for 12.0, so if you have 12.1 hot fix 1 all of the previous hot fixes will be included.

I think your problem is coming from somewhere else, you mentioned outlook, I assume you are attaching emails to the ACT! database using outlook when you send and also receive them.

Take a look at your history queue, click on start go to run and type %appdata% open up the act folder, than ACT! for windows 12 then the historyqueue folder. Are there a bunch of flies in here with the file extension of .msg if there is then these are files trying to attach to the database, and this may be what's causing your degradation. We are aware of this issue and are working on a fix for it. To work around it just delete the temp.msg files and this should speed things up, if your not comfortable with this call the US support team and they should be able to help you.

Its just my opinion but I would spend the money on upgrading the drive, windows will have the drivers already loaded for the serial ATA drive, but yes there may also be a expense with getting the old data off to the new drive, you will see vase improvement with not only ACT! but other windows applications, this how ever is up to you.

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

I think you were right about the hotfix order. No change in version number after the SP and hotfixes.

Also, no change in the performance. I get a few minutes work in at regular speed, then WHAM! 5 minutes to go to the next record. Hard drive spinning like crazy. Hour glass spinning as well.

I checked the appdata historyqueue folder and there were no .msg files or any other tmp files. All is clean. The email folder had some temp folders with a single file in each one (pic files, not message files). I deleted them. There were some XML file logs, but I don't (yet) have an XML reader. I might go get one and take a peak at them.

I appreciate your replies - thank you.

Looks like I may be off to the Dell site to order up a new laptop or to Salesforce to get my database working with the one I have. Salesforce will get me running for about $20US and a laptop will cost me about $1000. Hmmmm. Which one?

Re: SLOW LOOKUP still a problem

"I can't adequately articulate the sense of betrayal, frustration, and
hopeless I feel right now."

Barry, your frustration is clearly evident throughout this whole thread, but just as evident is the solution to your problem. It's surprising to see you suffer so much and try all remedies except the one your condition requires. From a distance, without the emotional distress, I (and likely many others reading this) clearly see that you lack hardware to run this software. Is this the software fault? Hardly, but you seem to think so, and therefore your strong feelings are the foregone conclusion.

You are indeed in a bad situation, no doubt, but blame needs to be placed where it belongs: with the hardware. If you accept that, then you can focus on improving it and will have a real chance of getting a different result.

And to give you a headstart, I suggest you read this thread. If you are able to implement what I suggest there for a mere $120, the performance improvements will be so dramatic that I bet a smile will come to your face. Heat won't be an issue, and your battery life will improve as a bonus.

There are many reasons in life to be frustrated, but lack of hardware shouldn't be one of them. Hope you will feel better soon.